


Cheer Up, Get Out of Bed

by Redrikki



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ableism, Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 21:06:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7006861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack had opened up to Peggy Carter and all he got was this lousy concussion.  Tag to 1.06</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cheer Up, Get Out of Bed

Jack lay in the alley behind the automat and wished the pavement would stop moving. His face throbbed where Carter had clocked him with his own damn gun. The roar of traffic on the street was deafening, but the distinctive three-note shuffle of Sousa’s walk was infinitely worse. Jack flung his arm across his face and groaned.

The approaching footsteps came to a halt. “You alive?” Sousa asked.

“‘M up,” Jack slurred and managed to pry his eyes open. Sousa’s head was framed by an almost blinding halo of sunlight. Jack couldn’t tell which was worse, the light or Sousa’s little smirk.

Sousa squatted down and touched the edges of Jack’s growing goose-egg. Jack tried to swat his hand away and somehow missed. “She really got you good,” Sousa said, not even bothering to hide his amusement. “How long do you figure she’s been itching to do that?”

Before Russia, Jack would have said every second of every day since they’d first met, but after he’d thought what? That they’d made a connection? Formed an understanding? That they were friends now? The truth was, he had shared a secret that could bury him in a moment of weakness and all he’d gotten in return was this lousy concussion. God, he was such an idiot. 

Jack levered himself up onto his elbows and waited for the alley to stop spinning. There was no sign of Carter, no telltale clatter of her heels. “She get away?” Maybe she was in cuffs in the car, but that didn’t seem likely.

Sousa looked away, ruefully rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, she…ah…got me too.”

Funny, Sousa didn’t look like he’d been pistol whipped. Still, there were plenty of ways a dame like Carter could get to a fella and the whole office knew she’d gotten to Sousa months ago. “So, now what?” Jack asked and let his head slump back to the ground.

Sousa sighed. “How about a hand up?” He braced himself with his crutch and his good leg before reaching down.

It rankled. All of it. Being beaten by a woman. Needing help from a cripple. But Carter had gotten them both, Sousa in the heart and Jack in the head. They’d need each other if they were going to take her down. “Yeah,” Jack said, and reached up to take Sousa’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Tittle comes from "Red, Red Robin" by Al Jolson.


End file.
